On a budget

Every single study shows that video – especially
YouTube – is the #1 conversion and marketing tool;
as of 2012, 4 BILLION VIDEOS are being watched
EVERY SINGLE DAY!

How many women are you not helping? How much
money are you leaving on the table by not taking
advantage of the huge power of video, especially
when there are so many free ways to use it?

Right now, you’re thinking:

“But Hil, I can’t. I look and sound stupid on
camera. I don’t want to humiliate myself in front
of the whole world. I don’t want people to laugh
at me!”

“I don’t have thousands of dollars for all that
equipment.”

“Where would I start? What would I say?
It’s overwhelming.”

“I’m doing just fine with my business.
I make enough to cover bills. Really, I’m fine.
Jane X doesn’t have any videos so I don’t
need any either.”

I understand. I have said many of those things
to myself in other areas…

Deep down, however, you have a niggling feeling
that you could take your business to the next level
– and get your message to thousands more women –
if you made and posted videos.

Here are the three REAL reasons – all of which
aren’t your ‘fault’ – that you haven’t done video
(yet 😉 ).

1. “Be Quiet!”

From the time we’re little girls, we’re taught to be
passive; be a lady; be polite; don’t make waves;
don’t speak up; don’t ruffle feathers; let the man
handle it; keep your head down; we’re the weaker
sex; don’t bruise any male egos; a woman’s place
is in the kitchen. If you’re younger than 40, you may
have not heard these as directly as your Mom did,
but I promise, through her words and actions, she
inadvertently passed many of them down to you
(not blaming our moms, they did the best they could).

Some of our sisters have totally overcome these ingrained
messages (Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow,
for example); some have outright rebelled (Lady Gaga).
Even women who have busted through some of the
junk that holds us back, struggle with unworthiness
and are afraid to tell the truth… When women spoke up
recently about harassment at a huge rideshare
company, many people discredited the womens’
stories and minimized the trauma that these women
had experienced. The message that the rest of us
got was, “Don’t bother to come forward. You’ll be
ridiculed; you’ll sabotage your chances of ever
working in your industry again; you’ll be looked at
as a snitch; you shoulda taken one for the team!”
(I’m getting chills writing it…)

So, it’s not your ‘fault’ that you grew up in a culture
that bombarded you with these false constructs,
day in and day out. BUT, as an adult woman, it is
completely in your power to choose to be aware
that these beliefs are undercurrents that run right
under your daily, surface thoughts, and choose
to examine and eliminate them.

Let’s look at the first objection again:

“…I can’t do it. I look and sound stupid
on camera. I don’t want to humiliate myself
in front of the whole world. I don’t want people
to laugh at me!”

It’s not that you’re afraid of others pointing
fingers, snickering, criticizing. It’s that you’ve
been taught to criticize yourself. In order to
avoid that, you stop yourself from ever doing
anything ‘out there’, different, potentially
controversial. ‘I wouldn’t want to embarrass
my family,” is a good way to justify lack
of action; I’ve used that one myself.

If you’re over 40, you remember the bigmouth
in the class that got sent to the principal’s
office. If you’re younger, you may have noticed
that the class bigmouth was suddenly quiet one
quiet one day and no longer disruptive (Ritalin).

We tell ourselves we look and sound stupid;
the REAL reason is, we don’t want to risk
failure (and we’re mostly raised not to try!
One study discovered that boys and men are
encouraged to take risks while females are
discouraged!). Nice girls don’t ‘put themselves
on display’; that’s from our grandmas
and great-grandmas.

2. “Cook and Clean!”

The number one thing our parents want /
wanted for us was to ‘get a good man’. The
number one fairy tale during our childhoods
depicted a sleeping beauty rescued by a Prince
after years and years of ‘captivity’.
The story gave him all the power to save
her from the evil, spell-casting queen and
cast her as a passive, disempowered
victim. Remember how many times your Mom
read you that story? How many times
you played dress up and waited for your
handsome prince or knight on a steed?
I have been disappointed over and over

in my grown-up life that no man ever
lived up to that fable…

To help ensure that we ‘get a good man’,
we’re strongly encouraged to excel in
homemaking arts: cooking, cleaning, sewing.
(Yes, I know that the newer generations
aren’t affected as heavily, yet all these are
prevalent in our collective, societal psyche.)
We weren’t encouraged to succeed in math,
engineering, etc. Thus, the thought of
recording your image and your sound can be
very intimidating.

3. “Who Do You Think You Are?” / “Who ME?!”

“What makes YOU an expert?!” I’m willing to
bet that while you heard this as a child from
a parent, teacher or relative, that you’ve said
it to yourself a gazillion times more. “Who am
I? What do I know?”

We’re taught to be quiet, focus on running the
house and be attractive so we’ll “find a good,
strong man to protect and provide for us”, so,
the LAST THING most of us could imagine
ourselves to be is a LEADER!

When we see other women, Condoleeza,
Hillary, famous singers / actresses, etc.,
they’re somehow in another league, special,
the chosen few, etc. We can’t possibly fathom
ourselves as being one of that group.

Yet, if you’re READING THESE WORDS,
you’re IN THAT GROUP! How do I know?
Something about the title, something in your
heart or gut, made you curious, made you want
to read this article. If you didn’t have the
leadership spark, you wouldn’t have been
compelled to click on it. That’s how I know.

What can you do to reverse the above?

1. Notice your underlying self-talk. When you
feel shame, blame, guilt, etc., go into it. Your
feelings are trying to tell you something. Put
yourself in a private place, turn the phone off.
Listen to the undercurrent; it’s kinda like the
thing that runs across the bottom of the TV
on CNN. In order to focus on what the news
person is saying, we have to ignore the
words travelling underneath. In order to focus
on our day-to-day activities – work, family –
we have to block out the words travelling
underneath. “I’m no one. No one wants to
hear anything I have to say.” Just notice
and listen to the words.

When you’re ready to go deeper: feel.
Get quiet and go into the feeling.

Two weeks ago, I went from great to despondent
in a matter of hours (very rare for me). On my way
‘down’, I remembered that it was another one
of ‘those’ times – the times when I go into
the tunnel and come out the other side;
having that thought before I plunged gave
me more courage to completely immerse
myself in it… I changed environments (went
on a short drive) to break up the energy /
give myself a different visual — please notice
I did NOT say, to change my feelings!!
Soon after I got behind the wheel, I saw:

Fourteen MOUNTAIN RANGES of shame that ran
my life; that controlled most everything
I said and did; that held me back from being
my whole self, from expressing all that is
inside me.

2. Note to self. Now and then, you think,
“Oh, I want to tell women about [money,
relationships, real estate, fitness].” If you’re
like a trillion other women, including me,
you start to explore that thought then are
immediately shut down by, “But I can’t.
Too stupid, expensive, impossible, out of
my comfort zone, don’t have permission
to do something like that.” The next time
you have an, “Oh, I want to tell…”, right
before the shut-down voices begin, do
a quick note to self: “I WANT TO TELL!
If I ever figure out how, I want to tell my
women how to [whatever],” then forget
about it and smile at the voices that
starting piping up, as if they are tiny
children (and they are!) that can’t help
it. Feel compassion for them; they were
born out of the need for self-preservation
and were there to try to protect you from
emotional harm.

3. Look for other women that have overcome what has until now stopped you. To yourself
say, “If SHE can do it, after what she’s
been through and with no budget, maybe
I CAN TOO!” (The nay-saying voices will
pipe up. Just smile. “Awww, sugars,
I hear you.”)

4. Surrender. You have the thoughts you
have (“I want to tell… If only they knew
what I know… I want to teach about…”) for a
REASON! Admit this to yourself. God /
the Universe didn’t them in your brain
by accident nor as a cosmic joke. 😉

If you do the above – be gentle and
patient with yourself – you will notice
subtle (and sometimes big!) changes
in your life. When you’re ready to move
closer toward your online video debut,
watch: 3 Keys To Being On Camera
…For more confidence, happiness, time,
energy: check out the free videos I have
for you on YouTube. Click here or type

LadyBossLifeCoach in the YouTube
browser. Watch me be a so-bad-it’s-cute rapper!
Watch me dress up as different me! Just watch!

…I had while lugging big pieces of construction debris several yards to an industrial dumpster.

The skylight job boss requested me for the next day’s work but alas, I got ‘sick’ for the first time in 7 years (!) and couldn’t go… when I felt a little better, the temp agency guy said he had work, which I presumed was the skylight job. It was 26 degrees, so I donned my Coveralls [see Pie in the Sky! for the photo of this man-magnetizing garment 😉 ]. By the time I found out it was a McDonald’s remodel, I had already committed and, as mentioned in the tagline, there was a huge pile of heavy, bulky stuff that needed to be dragged to the big trash bin…

One piece in particular, a 3 x 6 foot wood pallet with cardboard sides nailed to it, was ree-DIQUE-u-lously heavy. I couldn’t pry the cardboard off nor could I move it very far very fast. I got more and more frustrated and asked finally myself WHY I kept punishing myself by doing these icky, backbreaking jobs (!). (Part of it is my fear that they’re the only thing available and that’s legitimate; I have applied – see video 1 – for all kinds of stuff, all over this town and I swear, not one company for which I filled out an application called me back. Musta been my green hair and 5 nose piercings… not!)

Background: every time the temp agency man talks to one of the bosses about me, he tells them I work as hard as any man (and I smugly agree to myself in my most toughguy inside voice: “Yeah!” while conjuring up the feeling of curling my arm to make my bicep bulge), and it’s true: I work very hard and have oft felt so proud that I keep up with 20-something-year-olds on job sites. Yet, as I fought with that cardboard-sided pallet, while miserably sore-throat coughing, it hit me:

I was out in the work force being the ‘MAN’!!!!

Why? Because it’s all I knew! I had been my kids’ ‘dad’ as much as a woman could while raising them and it had become my default tendency!!! OMG! I realized right then and there that I was SICK and TIRED of being the MAN! (And oh, how it had affected the guys I attract!) I decided I don’t have to be the man anymore, in public or private, at work or at play. What a RELIEF! I was OVERJOYED to unearth my two-decades-long pattern / habit. More good news: just after making my discovery, a real male from the temp agency arrived to lift the stuff I could not. He is a great guy with a positive attitude; working with him really lifted my spirits, AND, as a bonus, he is going to change my oil for only $20! The strain and strife was worth it to realize, at my tender age (ha ha ha HA!) that I can be my feminine, womanly self. 😀

So, unable to face another facility (aka Port-A-Potty) in 25-degree weather, I slept in ’til 8 o’clock one morning. The temp agency guy called, asked if I wanted to work (dreadful thought but with bills to pay and nothin’ else goin’…), said I would hug him when he gave me my assignment.

Turned out to be on top of a 6-floor hotel, helping to install skylights for $10 an hour. Yeyyyy! (Yes, I hugged him!) I was dressed really warmly and knew that beneath me, whenever I desired it, were indoor plumbing and running water!

My primary tasks were to clean up the original pressure bars, into which the plexiglass panels are fitted.

I got to use a special drill to bolt each pressure bar to a 2 x 4 wood plank.

Then, I used a wide electric knife to shave old caulking off of one side and a narrow knife to remove a tar-like substance from the other side. Electric knives are the coolest things EVER! (Did I mention that I’m a tool addict?!) Bzzzzz! and off goes the old stuff!

Very little heavy lifting! Mostly precise, cosmetic work, which I enjoy so much.

There was a feeling of freedom, being up above the rest of the world. The views were awesome.

The hotel is beautiful.

It took everything I had not to jump into the jacuzzi, coveralls and all. 🙂

What I learned:

1. There are outside jobs that pay decently. 2. They aren’t all backbreaking. 3. They aren’t all dusty and dirty. 4. One can always add a little pizzazz or glamour, no matter what (note the scarf ;).

5. Often, the co-workers are nice, fun to work with and have good senses of humor. 6. If they swear in my presence, it doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of respect; it’s just how they speak.